Document information

Physical location:

96.05.00e

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to 'Hodden Gray', 1896-05 [96.05.00e]. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id//letters/1890-6/1896/96-05-00e-final.odt>, accessed June 9, 2026

1
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Farm gossip', a column attributed to 'Hodden Gray', Weekly times, 9 May 1896, p. 31. The identity of this 'Hodden Gray' is unknown; the nom de plume had been used by Josiah Mitchell in at least 1881, the year he died (Australasian, 27 August 1881, p. 276), presumably being derived from Robert Burns’s For a' That and a' That: 'What though on hamely fare we dine, wear hoddin' grey and a' that'. Hodden: undyed hand-woven coarse woollen cloth (OED).
The item follows a letter from 'A friend at Tolmie' who enclosed a sample of grass and asked for advice about its utility in a mixed sward.
[I have submitted the sample to the critical judgment of Baron von Mueller, who is at all times most willing to give practical and courteous advice. He pronounces it to be
Poa annua

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. It is an annual, the earliest to flower, and the earliest to disappear, and he does not think it would be of any permanent value owing to its very small growth. There are many perennial varieties much better, and which give by far a larger yield, viz.,
Poa Nemoralis

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,
Poa Pratense

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,
2
Poa pratensis?
and
Poa Trivalis

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,
3
Poa trivialis?
the seed of which can be obtained from any seeds man.]